Dear friends,

A short distance outside of Princeton Borough, just beyond Lovers Lane and against property owned by the Institute for Advanced Study, where Albert Einstein worked, lies open land that preserves the location of the Battle of Princeton, fought January 3, 1777, during the Revolutionary War. Most Princetonians who frequently drive Mercer Road are familiar with the oak tree beneath which General Hugh Mercer fell wounded before being carried to the nearby Thomas Clarke house.

Today, we shall ignore the controversy over who actually won the battle and visit the less-familiar western side of The Princeton Battlefield State Park, where we will explore the colonnade. What are those stone pillars that stand against a distant grove of trees? We will learn that they also have an interesting history.

My walk began on a hazy April morning under a sky that was trying not to be overcast and finally succeeded around the noon hour. Thus, there were a variety of lighting conditions. I had been attracted to the park a few days earlier by the splashes of yellow on each side of the colonnade, and there was urgency to return with a camera while the daffodils were still in full bloom.

The park sign provides the background for our subsequent footsteps. "This colonnade was originally part of Matthew Newkirk's home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, later called St. George's Hall. The house was designed by Thomas U. Walter, who later designed the dome on the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. In 1900, the colonnade was transported to Princeton and became the entrance of the Mercer Manor, which formerly stood on the east side of the Battlefield. Upon the Manor's demolition in 1957, the Institute for Advanced Study donated the colonnade to the State of New Jersey. The colonnade was dedicated where it stands in 1959, and declared a National Historic Monument in 1962."

Panorama - scroll right -->

From 1941 and into the late 1950s, my boyhood home was only a short distance away, on Battle Road, and I often walked or rode my bicycle down to the park and around the Institute property. At that time, the Mercer Manor was the private home of R. C. Maxwell, whose advertising company was well known throughout New Jersey for its roadside billboards. One night, around 1950, there was a huge fire that destroyed the interior, but not the entrance columns, and I remember standing there the next morning with the crowd of spectators. Although these facts seem lost to current historians, the small cluster of Institute faculty homes that now occupy the same ground are on a private road that is respectfully named Maxwell Lane.

The Thomas Clarke house is in the distance.
The plaque on the wall has these words:

This is hallowed ground. Across these fields in the early light of the third of January 1777, Washington's Continentals defeated British Regulars for the first time in the long struggle for American independence.

In the memorial grove beyond you, those who fell in the battle of Princeton, both American and British, are buried. The historic portico in which you stand was re-erectd here to make the entrance to the tomb of these uknown soldiers of the Revolution.

The next time you are passing this battlefield, invite yourself to take this same walk into the past. It was an awsome experience to stand and live where others had served and died for opposing ideals. Our country has a price and has a value, and we are again reminded of the cost by today's events.

On these serious thoughts, I wish you all well.